Australia politics live: Google tells parliament it disabled 600,000 child abuse accounts | Australian politics

The parliament sitting has begun and over in the senate, UAP senator Ralph Babet is trying to get his private members bill – ‘Public Governance, Performance and Accountability Amendment (Vaccine Indemnity) Bill 2023’ passed.

The explanatory memo explains:

This Bill seeks to prevent the granting of future indemnities by the Commonwealth in relation to the use of vaccines. This Bill will limit financial and legal risk to the Commonwealth so that risk remains with pharmaceutical companies.

This is a continuation of the UAP’s push against the pandemic measures.

There is no way this bill would pass the Labor controlled house, so it won’t go anywhere.

At the end of that interview, Katy Gallagher was asked about what the federal government is doing on housing and said:

We all acknowledge that pressure in the housing market is there particularly at the social and affordable end and that part of the solution is is generating and investing in that supply.

But the other side is dealing with some of the barriers that are holding back. You know, the supply that supply being able to be constructed.

So it’s a genuine cross government issue in this federation, one arm of government can’t solve it.

We can put all the money on the table tomorrow, and we’ve still got issues that we need to solve at the state and territory and local government level and that’s what the work the Prime Minister is leading.

National cabinet meets next Wednesday in Brisbane ahead of the Labor conference, where housing is the number one agenda item. That is because of the Greens push for renters rights, including rent freezes and rent caps (there is also the super profits tax idea, which is where the government set up a windfall tax that is reinvested into housing) as part of its negotiations on the housing Australia future fund. The government has said no to that, but it is looking at uniform guidelines the state and territories would follow to improve the rental market, for renters.

Katy Gallagher says she hopes the parliament will progress the legislation pretty quickly because there is support across the parliament for the changes.

But there is more work to be done before the second tranche of legislation is progressed.

Priority is parliament HR before establishing an independent commission, Katy Gallagher says

Katy Gallagher spoke a little about the Set the Standard legislation on ABC radio RN Breakfast this morning.

This first bill will set up the parliament HR (essentially) – the Parliamentary Workplace Support Service –which will be independent to government.

There has been an interim body in place, but this is the permanent body.

So how would it work?

Gallagher said:

Under the new model it’ll be created as an independent authority. It will have more ability including additional resourcing which we put in the last budget to provide those services.

However, I should say that the next piece of work that we’ve got to do is what’s going to be called the IPSC which is the Independent Parliamentary Standards Commission, which is going to be the permanent and ongoing body that will look at investigations and sanctions about complaints.

The PWSS doesn’t have that role yet.

It will it will do investigations and complaints handling for the interim and then once the IPSC is in place, that will be the body that does the investigations, that function with the ability to enforce sanctions.

Set the Standard report: government to introduce independent parliament support service

Coalition argue migration rates are behind housing crisis

The Coalition have pursued Labor over those figures, despite the numbers being lower than what was forecast when the Coalition was in power, and due to the re-opening of the borders after the pandemic closures.

It has been one of those issues which has been simmering along under the surface after a big public push in media and question times.

James Paterson was asked about the BCA’s view while on Sky and the Coalition senator was critical of the business lobby – a strange sentence to type.

I’m very supportive of migration to Australia which helped build this country, but the pace and the rate of that migration is absolutely a legitimate issue for public debate and the impact that has on services into our community is also very legitimate, particularly housing. Frankly, I thought this was a particularly tone deaf contribution from the business community today, suggesting that the only numbers that matter were the permanent migration program and not the temporary workers, students who are coming here right now.

Because we know they are coming in extraordinary numbers and by the end of this year, I’ve been told by people in the industry it’s going to be eye wateringly high numbers, perhaps the largest ever on record.

So, for the business community to just dismiss the impacts of that on people’s rent, on people’s mortgages, on their ability to get in the housing market is dangerously out of touch for them. And I think they have to recognise that we are not providing enough housing to Australians, and we need to get on with that task if we want to make sure we can welcome migrants.

Business Council of Australia calls for migration reforms

Prescription changes could hurt rural and regional pharmacies, Liberal senator says

Liberal senator James Paterson was on Sky News this morning explaining the Coalition’s position on attempting to block the 60-dispensing prescription changes.

Paterson says the Coalition supports cheaper medicine, but wants the government to come back to the table with pharmacists:

I mean, everyone is in favour of delivering cheaper medicines to Australians. That’s something we’re very proud of that we achieved in our time in government by listing a range of new medicines on the PBS. It’s something that Labor failed to do when they were last in government. But this could have very serious unintended consequences on community pharmacies, particularly in rural and regional communities, and no one is better off if they lose their only medical care, in which it is [in] some regional communities and in some remote communities. And the government’s lack of consultation, lack of consideration for these issues is leading to really significant angst in the community and obviously particularly with community pharmacy operators.

Google tells parliament it disabled 600,000 child abuse accounts

Paul Karp

Battle against soft drink flavoured alcohol isn’t a new one

When I was in high school, the big drink furore was over soft drink flavoured alcoholic drinks, alcoholic ‘pops’ which included ice blocks and sickly sweet pre-packaged ‘shots’ of alcohol which could be hidden from bag searches (or so I heard).

It is not a new battle, is what I am saying. There is a reason things like Passion Pop are still for sale in liquor stores. The pattern seems to be the same – an outcry, a push back and a simmer down again.

Closing advertising loopholes, given that most young people do not consume their media in the same way as their parents, let alone when the advertising codes were put in place is one thing and probably the battle worth focussing on.

Focussing on one product doesn’t usually lead to a change.

Teals push for stricter alcohol regulations as Asahi’s Hard Solo launches

Senate ‘has a choice’ to deliver cheap medicines to 6 million Australians, Butler says

Mark Butler says he is speaking to senators David Pocock, Jacqui Lambie and Tammy Tyrrell about the importance of the policy for patients (the Greens have already said they won’t support the Coalition’s motion).

This is a critically important cost-of-living measure for 6 million Australians whose medicine bills will halve if this measure is supported by the Senate.

But it’s also good for their health. We know that 60-day prescriptions, which are very common around the world for ongoing chronic health conditions, improve medication compliance. It also has the ability to free up millions of GP consults, which we know are desperately needed out in their community.

And that’s why this measure is supported by every patient group and every doctors’ group. But it has been opposed by the powerful pharmacy lobby now for five years when it was first recommended by the medicines experts who manage our Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme. The former government ignored the recommendation and as a result, those 6 million patients have paid literally hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars in fees they shouldn’t have had to pay.

The Senate has a choice this morning: they can put that to an end – that delay, that blocking to an end – and they can deliver cheaper medicines to 6 million Australians, which will be really good for the health system as well.

Health minister on Coalition’s attempts to block two-for-one script changes

Health minister Mark Butler was up bright and early on the Seven Network to talk the two-for-one script changes, which the Coalition are trying to block with a disallowance motion.

That’s because the Pharmacy Guild have been running a very strong campaign against the changes. Why? Because pharmacists stand to lose up to $150,000 or so in dispensing fees over the mid-term life of the policy change. The government has said it will take the $1.2bn it is estimated to save with the policy over the forwards and reinvest it back into community pharmacies, and have brought forward the next community pharmacy agreement negotiations by a year (that is where the details of how much pharmacists will receive for dispensing medicines, giving flu shots etc is nutted out).

But the Guild and its members are upset not just because of the lost dispensing fees, but also because of the incidentals (like jelly beans, I imagine) people buy when they are filling their scripts. And if chronic patients are coming in half as often, then that is a lot less jelly beans being sold on top of the prescription.

Not politics, but politics adjacent – the ABC shut down almost all its X (formerly twitter) pages yesterday, as Amanda Meade reported:

Musk has responded:

There is a difference between censorship and abuse, but apparently not in Musk’s world.

Good morning